I’m sure you’ve heard we humans are taking so many fish out of the oceans that many of the fish we like to eat soon won’t be there anymore.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society reports that a whopping 75% of the world’s oceans are over-fished. This is scary stuff when you consider the big picture. We’re upsetting the balance of ecosystems that support almost half of all species on earth as well as taking food from other fish and animals like seals and albatrosses.

Even though it’s a huge problem, you and I can make a difference!

Like switching off a light, the solution to this problem requires a simple decision made by you to only buy sustainable seafood which sends a message to the fishing industry to only sell fish which reduce our human footprint on the marine environment.

Taronga’s produced a Sustainable Seafood Guide so you can check which fish are ok to buy when you’re shopping. Really, it comes down to three things:

1. Eat less of the big fish

Many of the larger fish species are on the brink of collapse so try avoiding salmon, orange roughy, tuna, swordfish and sharks. You’ll also be doing yourself a favour as large fish species often have the most fat and accumulate the most toxins over their lifespan.

2. Eat smaller fish that reproduce faster

Small species are less endangered because they are more abundant, reproduce faster and eat species that are lower in the food chain – in other words they’re not consuming fish themselves. They also healthier for you as they have less fat and don’t accumulate as many toxins as the larger, longer-lived fish species.

3. Keep in mind how fish are caught

Some trawling nets are so large they could pull a 747 jet off the ocean floor, so just imagine the damage they’re doing to the marine landscape! Instead, choose fish caught by line, pot, or net (or other subsistence fishing practises). Most importantly avoid trawl-caught fish.